As predicted, Breaking Dawn finally was dethroned last weekend, but it was during a weekend where the industry saw it’s 2nd worst total box office of the entire year at $67 million. Only the $64 million on September 9th – 11th was worse (football season started so it had a particularly poor Sunday). New Year’s Eve did take number one with a $13 million draw and Jonah Hill’s foul-mouthed The Sitter surprisingly took the number two spot. Don’t expect either to stay there for long though as one of the most anticipated movies of the holiday season comes out this weekend.

1) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – The Napoleon of Crime, Professor Moriarty, makes his presence known to all of London and only Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson can stop the nefarious scheme he has put in motion.

Like many good movies series these days, Sherlock Holmes came out with an average villain to start before bringing out the iconic big guns in a second film. Holmes versus Moriarty is like Batman versus the Joker and with Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, and Rachel McAdams all returning to reprise their roles and Guy Ritchie returning to direct means this sequel is shaping up the surpass the first in every way. And considering how wonderful the first movie was, this movie is sure to put butts in seats and entertain like few movies have this year. Looking to be full of action, humor, a tad of romance, and great performances from all those involved, at the very least this may be one of the more complete movie experiences you’re likely to find this year and is the best holiday present the movie industry has given us, the people, in some time.

2) Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked – Alvin and the gang are up to their old mischievous tricks when while on a cruise ship, the Chipmunks and Chipettes fall overboard and are washed up on a deserted tropical paradise.

How the heck are these movies still being made? Each one looks worse than the one before and yet someone keeps giving them the green light. I remember Alvin and the Chipmunks from when I was a kid, and I guess the logical explanation would be that it has that nostalgic appeal for some parents and clearly then their children enjoyed the movies enough to keep going back for more. But did we really need a third Chipmunk movie? I don’t see it doing well enough to be a threat to the mass appeal of Game of Shadows, but family movies always do well enough as proven time and again and so I wouldn’t be surprised if this made it into the number two spot. What happened to Jason Lee though that he’s resorted to doing all these Chipmunks movies?

Ray Carsillo has extensive roots in geek culture, as he’s written about video games, comics, and movies for such outlets as Newsday.com, ESPNNewYork.com, Classic Game Room on YouTube, Collider.com, and Comicvine.com before finally settling into EGM as reviews & previews editor. His main goal in life? To become king of all geek media, of course! Follow Ray’s exploits on Twitter: @RayCarsillo. Meet the rest of the crew.